Obama and Fox Play Seventh-Grade Pranks

You may have missed how Barack Obama took questions at his Wednesday night press conference from every major news network except one -- Fox.

Maybe the president's decision had something to do with the fact that Fox made it quite clear that it wouldn't be airing his presser on its main channel. The network instead showed one of its TV shows, Lie to Me, which despite its name is not a sitcom about presidential press conferences.

Is that the smell of a cat fight?

If so, it's not fresh. Obama and Fox have been turning their cheeks since the early stages of the campaign. On March 17, 2008, Fox News debuted its "Obama Watch," a day-hour-minute, 24-style clock tracking how long it would take Obama to appear for an interview Sunday morning after he said he would, some day. As Jake Tapper noted, Fox's false madrassa story plug on Fox & Friends probably didn't help its chances of a sit-down.

Still, more than a month later, Obama showed up to chat with Chris Wallace. How did the right-leaning network repay him? In May, Fox analyst Liz Trotta joked that she wanted "Osama, Obama" to be killed. Then, one of Fox's better-known anchors, E. D. Hill, suggested that Obama and his wife had performed a "terrorist fist jab" at a victory rally.

So Obama shouldn't count himself as one of the friends on Fox & Friends. (Here's a quick litmus test for objectivity: Fox & Friends is the network's morning headlines show hosted by Steve Doocy, who says he's a journalist. Yet at an official White House event last year that I covered on the South Lawn, Doocy was there -- not as a reporter, but as President Bush's emcee. Doocy introduced the president. The president thanked him.)

But wait a second. Obama granted an interview to Bill O'Reilly two months before the election. Was the president-to-be trying to shore up support among a skeptical base? Much can be read into how a president chooses his challengers.

Many have accused Obama of playing favorites at press conferences, just as his predecessor used to do. Obama called on a reporter from the liberal Huffington Post at his last press conference, during which he also notably passed by The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial boards run conservatively. You can call that playing your hand well, or you can call it gerrymandering the media.

Still, this question must be asked: Would a question from Fox's reporter have mattered all that much? The White House corps pressed the chief on the pig flu, torture, Pakistan and maybe even the newest episode of Lost. Even though the reporters themselves may have lacked ideological diversity, the questions rightfully omitted bias.